


Facets

by saltandlimes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, Chubby Thor, Fat Thor, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity Gems, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Thunderfrost - Freeform, Time Travel, Trauma, thor wields the infinity gauntlet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:14:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: Endgame Fix-ItThe war has been won, and Thanos defeated. Someone must take the infinity stones back to their proper homes across time and space, and Thor is determined to do it.If he takes a moment and uses them to call a few people back from the dead first, well, no one is going to be able to stop him.





	1. Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO! Endgame fix-it, because I was _not_ satisfied with the ending.

“Stop.”

Steve whips around to face Thor, and Thor tries to set his shoulders into something a little more welcoming. There’s no one here in this clearing with them, save only Sam Wilson and Bucky, yet he feels eyes heavy on his shoulders, on his chest, raking over him too closely. 

“I’ll do it,” he says. 

“You’ll do what?” Steve asks, stepping down off the platform in the middle of the clearing. 

“Put back the stones, set the time stream aright, whatever you want to call it. I’ll do it.”

“Thor-” Steve starts, but Bucky holds up a hand. 

“Hear him out, Steve.” 

Thor glances at him, at the way Bucky looks only at Steve. It is not for pity of Thor that he will hear Thor out, and Thor likes him all the more for that. 

“You have your life here, Steve,” Thor starts. He swallows heavily, willing his face not to crumple and his fists not to clench at his sides. “You have your friends and the people who love you. If you didn’t come back…”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Steve asks, his lips narrow.

“You deserve peace,” Thor steamrollers on, ignoring Steve’s question entirely. “You’ve done enough.”

Steve laughs hollowly. He sets the bag he holds with the gems down on a stump and walks towards Thor, his steps long and measured. When he’s close enough that their chests almost touch, he looks Thor straight in the eyes. 

“And you haven’t?” he asks. 

Thor holds his gaze for three long heartbeats. They pound in his chest, rattling his ribcage and beating against his soft breast. 

“No,” he growls. 

“Thor-” Steve starts, but yet again, Bucky cuts him off. 

“And you think this will mean you’ve done right by the world?” he laughs, his long hair falling down his back as he tips his head up to the cloudy sky. “It won’t.”

Steve turns away from Thor then, moving to Bucky’s side and setting a hand on his shoulder. It’s the metal one. Bucky shrugs him off, but doesn’t move away. 

“What do you know about such things?” Thor growls. 

“What do I know about failing?” Bucky chuckles. “What don’t I know?”

“That wasn’t your fault, Buck,” Steve says. 

“And it wasn’t Thor’s that Thanos didn’t die in a single hit. What you don’t ever get, Steve, is that it doesn’t matter. Who cares if I was brainwashed, or Thor was aiming for the heart, just as he was trained?”

Thor nods slowly. Of all the allies he expected to find among the Avengers, Bucky was never one of them. He does not know the man, not really. He has heard of him, of course, heard the stories Steven told on a late night. Yet until this moment, he did not truly know who Bucky was. 

Steve is staring wide-eyed between the two of them, his hands clenching and relaxing at his sides. 

“You really think you’re fit for this?” he asks finally. 

“You saw him fight,” Sam reminds him. “I’d put him at my back any day. If he can do that, I can’t see why a little skip through time is a problem.”

“It isn’t,” Thor says. 

“Thor-”

“No. Let me do this, or fight me for them. That is your choice, Captain Rogers. I know not whose call Mjolnir will answer then, but you cannot call the lightning without my will, nor can you wrest Stormbreaker from me.”

Steve’s face falls, and he splays his hands in front of himself, smoothing out the air as though soothing the storm gathering over their heads. Thor lets the clouds unravel a little at that, the threat of rain pulling back just a little, and the electricity dying from the air. 

“You have to come back,” Steve finally says.

Thor chuckles dryly. There is no place for him in the past, no place next to the glory soaked prince who laid out Asgard’s wrath upon the realms and thought not of those realms themselves. Nor does he have a place in his father’s house, not as he is now. He could not look Odin’s in the eye, not with what he knows of Hela, of the pain the galaxy had once felt as Asgard made its unstoppable way to match Hala in cruelty and power.

Nor does he need to remain in the past, not when he holds the stones in his hand. In the past are dreams and phantoms, yet the song there remains the same, and no matter what, he would find himself once again staring at Thanos on the ship, watching as Thanos destroyed all that he held dear. No, all that he can do is change what is ahead of him.”

“There is nothing for me there,” he says.

“What?” Steve asks. 

“I am not meant for that world, Steven. I will return.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Steve hesitates.

“Just give him the damn stones,” Sam snaps. “And let him go. He’s a fucking god. He’ll be fine.”

Steve blushes crimson. He holds out the soft bag where the stones line in their individual cases, each cradled within a protective field. Then, slowly, he takes his belt from around his waist, and hands it to Thor as well.

“There are enough particles there to get you throughout the past, and then back again. You still have your suit?”

Thor nods, patting the satchel at his side. 

“Whenever you’re ready, then, I guess get changed, and we’ll send you off,” 

“Thank you,” Thor says, “But that will not be necessary.”

He catches Steve’s brows drawn together and Bucky’s half smile, just as he calls the Bifrost from Stormbreaker’s heart and vanishes into its depths.

***

Thor lands heavily on the soft floor of the forest. A tree has fallen to one side of the clearing, where the Bifrost knocked it from its roots, and Thor spares a single moment to walk to it and run his hand down its smooth bark. Then he sets his satchel and Steve’s belt on the ground next to it.

When he kneels in the leaf litter, it is soft and wet against his knees. It soaks through the thin fabric of his trousers quickly, and he knows there will be new stains marking them when he finally stands once again. It matters little, however. It will simply be one more to add to a collection that has grown for years. 

Thor opens his satchel and draws out a heavy mailed glove. It sings with power, calling out to him to draw it on and grip Stormbringer tight, to swing his axe through the air and cleave the world asunder. Thor shakes his head to dislodge the song, yet it echoes in his ears all the more. The bag holding the infinity stones clanks as it finds its place behind the glove. 

Above him, a crow calls. Its voice echoes through through the empty forest. Thor looks up just as it flutters from its pine up in to the grey sky. He watches it until it disappears from sight beyond tall trees that ring the clearing. 

When Thor looks back to the forest floor, it feels as though the stones stare up at him though the soft leather of the bag, beckoning to him. He spreads the satchel flat on the ground, then tips the bag with the infinity stones out onto it, watching as they roll free in their protective housings. Bruce had dug them up from somewhere in Tony’s lab after they’d laid Tony to rest, slipping each of them into its housing with tongs. Now each of the stones seems encased in diamond, if diamonds had hinges at one side. 

They come to rest in a little pile in the center of the satchel. Thor leans forward. The space stone glitters up at him from its case, and he reaches out, plucking it from the pile. Without the tesseract around it, it pulses with energy, even within its casing. He wonders, for a moment, what that other Loki is doing with it, so far away. 

Then he shakes his head. 

He knows. 

Loki would find the scepter, and take it and the tesseract to Thanos. That was not his Loki after all. That was not the man who fought with him, saved him, saved Jane, and then saved their people. That was not the man who wrapped his arms tight around Thor’s waist on the Statesman, and promised not to leave him. 

That was the boy who snarled and spit poisoned words at him, whose eyes clouded with tears as Thor cupped the back of his neck and begged him to come home. That was the man broken from tortures Thor had only begun to understand in the years when he thought Loki dead. He sets the space stone back in the pile with the rest of the gems, and pulls his mailed gauntlet close. Then, slowly, he opens the clasp on each of the stones’ casings. 

They rise in the air before him. The aether swirls in a formless mass, before coalescing together, and hovering next to the others. They form a perfect circle, pulsing and humming to him. 

Thor has never felt anything like this. When the storm rages though his veins, it is nothing compared to the power that hangs just before him. Their call echoes through his mind, whispers of the ability to remake the universe, to set all to rights. Asgard could live again, his mother and father could be called back through Yggdrasil’s branches, pulled from Valhalla to walk the living realms once more. He could build shining palaces for his people with only a word, or take whole planets for their use. 

Thor raises the gauntlet, slipping it on and flexing his fingers. As though called to him, the stones swirl frantically around the gauntlet, and then, one after another, settle into place. 

Thor’s breath stops in his chest. 

***

For long moments, Thor is caught there, in the space between two breaths. In front of him, the universe opens up. Galaxies fill his mind, novas exploding and dissipating into the blank darkness of space, only for stars to be reborn again from their ashes. He can hear the pulse of the crow’s heart as it flutters to its perch once more, and feel the ebb and flow of the water that rushes deep underneath his feet. With a single thought, he could stop either, and then start them both again, as though they had never died. .

The clouds split open above him. Lightning flickers down to kiss his sides and flow through him. Rain starts to fall. It streams down Thor’s face, and over his shoulders. It soaks through the time-worn fabric of his shirt, plastering it to his soft chest. It drips off the curve of his belly, and puddles between his knees. Soon, Thor is utterly drenched. 

He tips his head up to the sky, and drinks the rain down. Thunder roars through the forest, and Thor raises a hand to cradle lightening in it. Sparks dance across to his gauntleted fingers, bouncing between each of the stones in turn. They flash as it touches them, as though welcoming Thor’s power to join their own. 

He has never felt more alive. 

Slowly, the power worms its way into his bones, settling down until it’s a tingle at the back of his mind. Thor flexes his fingers as rain streams down the gauntlet, and around him tree-limbs toss in the wind. He takes a deep breath. 

“Heimdall,” he calls, as he has called thousands of times before. This time, though, he calls not so that he can himself come home, but instead to bring Heimdall himself forth. He calls through time and space, through the ends of the worlds, and past them. If anyone can hear this call beyond the veil of death, it will be Heimdall. If anyone will see him here, alone, in the world of the living, it is Heimdall. His heart beats faster, and his throat closes as he waits. 

“Heimdall, I need you,” he chokes out. 

“Thor?”

The voice comes from behind him, and Thor cranes his neck around from where he’s kneeling on the forest floor, unable to stagger to his feet, his legs too weak with hope. 

Heimdall stands there, dressed in his torn and tarnished armor, rain pouring over him. 

“Thor, how-” Heimdall asks. He breaks off, coming to stand in front of Thor. He takes a knee then, reaching out and grabbing Thor’s arm. His fingers are as strong as they have ever been, and even through his shirt and sweater, Thor can feel their living warmth. 

“What has happened?” Heimdall asks. 

“You died,” Thor chokes out.

“To you, my king,” Heimdall looks around through the forest, his eyes distant. “To our people. I see them, but they are far away from here, and you are not with them.”

“I… They don’t need me,” Thor stumbles. He doesn’t know how to explain, what to say now that Heimdall is in front of him.

“I have always been able to see when you are lying, Thor Odinson, even from yourself. Why are you telling yourself this?”

“Because it’s the truth,” Thor snarls. Lighting flickers between his mailed fingers. “You don’t know what I’ve done over the past five years, Heimdall. You don’t know what I’ve become.”

Heimdall’s fingers dig into Thor’s arm. 

“Think you that the eyes of Valhalla are blind?”

Thor opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again. His cheeks flush red, and he drops his head. 

“Grief is no shame, Thor. Think you that your father did not grieve your mother? Think you that it was not a relief when Loki took the throne from him then?”

“Heimdall-” Thor doesn’t know how to explain. There is nothing he can say to make Heimdall understand how he is not fit to be king, how he has never been fit. He remembers kneeling in front of Odin - in front of Loki, though he did not know it - and telling his father that he had not the brutality for rule. These past years have taught him he does not have the bravery either. 

“I have never been able to change your mind when you set it to something, Thor. This is no different. Yet hear me. You are not who you believe you are. You will see it, I know.”

“Heimdall, I did not call you back for comfort,” Thor finally says. 

“Nay?” Heimdall laughs. “Nor for words you will not hear, I wager.”

“I will call those of our people who Thanos killed on the Statesman back as well. And you - you will help lead them. The Valkyrie, Brunnhilde, leads them now. She knows their struggles over the past five years, and you know their lives over the centuries before. You can be her counsel, as you have ever been mine.”

“And you, Thor? What will you do?” Heimdall stares at Thor with his golden eyes. They sink deep inside him, pressing into his soul and tearing him open for Heimdall to see all. 

Thor flexes the gauntlet with the infinity stones. They sparkle in the grey, rain-thick air, and although Heimdall does not look to them, his eyes go a little wider. 

“I have a duty. A task I can fulfill.”

“Indeed. And your brother?”

“You have always known my thoughts, Heimdall. He will come with me, if he wishes. If not-” Thor falters. He has not thought about what he will do if Loki chooses to leave him, yet he cannot ask Loki to come with him on such a quest as he will endure, not with how Loki has suffered.

“Fear not, Thor. Loki’s heart has ever been closed to me, but I do not doubt him in this.”

“No?”

“No, Thor. But you are not here for me, nor do you hold those stones solely to call our people forth from their untimely rest. Send me to them, and be on your way. I will be here when you return.”

Thor finally reaches out and clasps Heimdall’s arm.

“You are a true friend. And Heimdall, if you find Sif… tell her… tell her I’m sorry about Fandral and Hogun and Volstagg. Tell her I should have been there. Tell her-” a tear rolls down Thor’s cheek as his throat closes again.

“I will tell her the truth, Thor. That they died valiantly, and that there was nothing you nor I could have done. Now, send me to our people, for we have duties to do.”

Thor squares his shoulders. They do have duties, and after years of neglecting his, he can do this one. He flexes his fingers inside the gauntlet, and then wishes Heimdall away, all the way to New Asgard. As he does, he reaches into the well of time, and draws his people forth. He brings them through the universes, setting them on the boarders of New Asgard along with Heimdall. He will lead them to the rest of their people, Thor is certain of it. 

When he feels in his heart that all have been recalled, he lowers his gauntlet, panting. There is only one person left to call back to life. 

“Loki,” he whispers. 

***

Thor clenches his gauntleted fist, and calls again, this time louder. 

“Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard, heir to Jotunheim, trickster, brother, I call you to me.”

“You needn’t be so formal, Thor.”

The voice comes from behind him again, but this time, Thor cannot turn. He is frozen in place, his heart pounding in his chest. He feels Loki’s footsteps, rather than hears them, as Loki comes up right behind him. Then one of Loki’s hands finds his face, and tips his chin upwards. 

The rain falls into Thor’s eyes as he looks up to find Loki bending over him, staring down. There are no shadows under Loki’s eyes, no sign that he is careworn. There are no marks from Thanos’s hand around his throat, nor any hint that Loki was harmed at all, save the dark smudges of soot across his leather jerkin. 

“What have we here?” Loki says softly. “Thor Odinson, with a gauntlet on his hand and gems gleaming bright. What have you been doing, brother?”

“Loki,” Thor breathes again. There is no room for any other words. He cannot find it in himself to rise, nor to embrace his brother. He cannot take his eyes from Loki’s face. For a moment, they stare at one another, until Loki tosses his hair back from his face and releases Thor’s chin. Thor cranes his neck to watch as Loki walks to face him.

“Not going to say anything?” Loki asks. He stands before Thor with one hand on his hip, glancing around at the rain falling in the dark wood. “At least stop this torrent before I’m soaked.”

Thor bites his lip, and asks the clouds to part. The rain slackens, and then slows to a soft pitter-patter on the forest floor, before finally stopping completely. Then the clouds break above them, and sunlight streams down. It glances off the metal at Loki’s throat and the clasps of his boots, leaving him sparkling and his pale skin kissed with gold. 

“That’s better,” he says. 

“You’re alive,” Thor tells him.

“Clearly.”

“It worked. You’re alive. They told me I couldn’t do this. That it wouldn’t work. That time would not allow it. And once I had called Heimdall back, I thought, I thought that maybe there was a chance. But I could not dare to hope. Not truly. And now… you’re alive.”

“You’re not making sense, Thor. Not that that’s terribly unusual, but even for you, this is a little much.”

The nip of Loki’s words against Thor’s heart is welcome, and he grins. He struggles to his feet, stepping across the flat leather of his satchel where it still lies on the ground. He wraps his arms around Loki, pulling his brother close. For a moment, Loki struggles. Then, all at once, he relaxes into Thor’s hold. Thor buries his face in Loki’s damp hair, breathing deeply. Loki smells of nothing but himself, of the same icy sweat he always has. Loki’s hands come up around him, reaching across his broad back, and for once, Thor is glad of how he has changed over the past few years, because he can fold Loki’s into his arms and cradle Loki in his soft embrace. He runs one hand up Loki’s back to cup his head. Loki sighs. 

At that, Loki pulls away, eyes wide, as though that is a step too far, as though showing his own pleasure at their reunion is too much. He brushes himself off. Thor watches with greedy eyes. He cannot look away, for fear that Loki will vanish once more, and Thor will not know how to call him back. 

“You have not answered me,” Loki says. He catches Thor’s eye, and raises an eyebrow. “What is going on here?”

“You died,” Thor tells him. 

“I realize that, Thor.”

“And I mourned you.”

“I can see that,” Loki tells him. 

Thor flushes. The power of the gauntlet rises to meet him, and he shivers as it calls to him. 

“A moment, Loki. I swear, I will tell you all. But I must rid myself of this first,” Thor tells him. Loki raises an eyebrow again, but Thor shakes his head.

He closes his eyes, wishing, and in the darkness he hears the clatter of the stones as they fall from his gauntlet. There is a clatter as they find their little crystal homes once again. Thor shivers. Their power leaves him in a rush. He is left with only the lighting in his blood, and the thunder in his mind. He feels hollow. With a thought, he calls sparks up between his fingers, letting them dance back and forth as he opens his eyes. 

The empty place inside him fills as he sees Loki once again. He shivers. His brother stares at the stones as they lie in a pile behind him. Thor lets the sparks vanish back into the palm of his hand, and catches Loki’s eye once more.

“You have the infinity stones,” Loki says, as though realizing for the first time. 

“Yes. And no.”

“How can it be both, Thor?”

“I have them, but they do not belong here, nor can they stay.”

“Explain. From the beginning,” Loki orders. 

“It is a long tale. We should… we should sit.” 

What Thor really wants is a beer, or maybe five, and the chance to dull the pain of the last five years before he relieves it for Loki. But his brother’s eyes gleam, and he knows Loki will not let him put this off long enough to get good and drunk. 

Loki waves a hand, and the ground dries beneath him. He settles down with his legs crossed in front of himself. Thor thumps down less gracefully. 

“You remember dying?” he starts. 

***

Thor wakes slowly. It is dark out, and all around him he can hear the night sounds of the forest, the soft chirp of small creatures in the underbrush and the rustle of little things moving through the wood. It smells of damp wood, of leaves after rain, and he takes a deep breath. 

When he opens his eyes, he finds Loki staring at him from where his brother curled up to sleep. They have both slept rougher than this before, but it was only exhaustion that kept them here earlier. Now Loki’s eyes shine in the darkness, brighter than any star. 

“What is it?” Thor asks, his voice sleep-thick.

“You are really determined to return the stones to their places in history?”

“It is my duty. A duty I can actually fulfill, Loki. I haven’t had a lot of those, not in the past few years.”

“Thor…” Loki trails off, then props himself up on an arm, looking down at Thor. “It’s strange to hear you like this.”

“Like what?” Thor asks. He too, sits up, pulling his robe around himself. His belly rumbles, reminding him that they skipped dinner last night. 

“It’s nothing, brother,” Loki says. Thor shivers. He cannot help but feel a flood of warmth each time Loki names him such.

“Then what? You should rest.”

“I’ve been resting for five years, Thor.” Loki shakes his head. He runs an eye over Thor, and Thor pulls his robe tighter. 

“So?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“I’m coming on this fool’s quest with you. You want to wander time and space. Well, I’m coming with you.”

Thor sighs. “Loki, you don’t have anything to prove. Not to me, not to Asgard, not to anyone.”

“I know,” Loki laughs. “Funny, isn’t it, that I’ve finally learned that, and you haven’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to prove anything, Thor. I am coming with you, though.”

“Why?” Thor asks. He feels as though he’s being slow, as though there is something here he cannot see, but all he can think of is that Loki wants to stay with him, wants to be at his side. 

“You need someone to keep you out of trouble,” Loki says. 

Thor laughs, his sides heaving and his breath stuttering. He laughs and laughs, harder than he has in years. 

“And you, the god of mischief, you’re going to do that?” he stutters out. 

“Maybe not,” Loki grins at him, waving a hand in acceptance. “But I’ll be at your side when you get into it.”

“You’re sure?” Thor asks. He still isn’t quite sure why Loki is offering. Loki has nothing to prove, no duty to this world. 

“Would I have offered otherwise?” Loki says, his words biting.

Thor shakes his head. 

“Then go to sleep, Thor. We have a quest to start in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/saltandlimes), [tumblr](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com) and everywhere else as Saltandlimes.
> 
> +thanks to Thors-soft-cheeks, aleksandrnevskii, and thundersnake69 for thoughts and inspiration


	2. Power

There is a leaf stuck to Thor’s cheek when he wakes up. He pushes himself up off the forest floor, his side aching where a root dug into it over night. Loki is still asleep, curled on his side with one hand beneath his head and his other arm wrapped tight around himself. His mouth is slightly open, and Thor hears the faint whistle of his breath.

He brushes himself off, and reaches out, about to shake Loki awake. Then he pauses. Thor pulls back his hand, and just watches the rise and fall of Loki’s chest. Asleep, all of the lines around his eyes have smoothed away, and Loki is left with the same soft face he had before all this started, fifteen years ago. It is only now that Thor sees how the past has changed Loki, just as it has changed him. 

He bites his lip. Seeing Loki like this, Thor cannot help but wish that things had gone differently. He does not mourn the destruction of Asgard’s power. That, he has thought time and time again over the past five years, was a blessing. He wishes now he had asked Hogun what Vanaheim truly thought about Asgard’s rule. He does not know, now, how much Hogun would have said, but he cannot imagine it would have been as complimentary as he wishes it were. More so, he wishes he could ask Laufey, ask the Jotun. 

So much has changed since he stormed into Jotunheim, cloaked in what felt like righteous anger and burning with devotion. He had thought that on Midgard he had learned better. Now he knows that all he learned was how to control himself. He had thought for years that the wrong he did was to storm in without negotiation, without warning. Now he knows differently. 

The wrong was deeper and more horrible than that. There was a wound so deep that Jotunheim could not heal from it, and Thor had driven a spike deeper inside. Perhaps his father had been right to stop the Jotun on Midgard - though now Thor wonders at the truth in that story - but he had no right to deprive the Jotun of the very lifeblood of their land, the glue that kept their world together, the source of their magic. He had no right to close them to the rest of the worlds, and to keep them bound to their failing planet like dogs tied up in the summer heat, who tug and pull at their chains but then finally lie down in the dust and let themselves die. 

Loki lets out a little snuffle, and Thor smiles softly at him, tears. Pricking the corners of his eyes. He was wrong about so much, but the one thing he has never doubted is that Loki is worth his love. Even in that dungeon on Asgard, seeing Loki fall to pieces, Thor had known. He had trusted Loki even then, no matter what he said to his friends. 

Perhaps he has no right to ask Loki to join him on this quest, not with what Loki has suffered. But he cannot stop himself from accepting an offer given freely. Loki has ever been at his side, and he cannot bear to let him leave it. 

Thor reaches out and sets a hand on Loki’s shoulder, squeezing it softly. Loki’s eyes open, and he presses his lips together, swallowing heavily. 

“Good morning, brother,” Thor says. 

“My back feels like it’s been pinched in a vise,” Loki groans. He flops over, stretching out and arching until there’s a faint pop. “That’s better.”

“Are you still set on coming with me?” Thor asks. 

“Would I have changed my mind so quickly, Thor?”

“No,” he admits. 

“So what priceless treasure would you like to rid yourself of first?” Loki asks. 

“I hadn’t… I hadn’t really made a plan.”

“No? Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t mock me, Loki!”

“How would you know it’s me if I didn’t?” Loki laughs. He sits all the way up, then stands, stretching and twisting farther. Thor struggles to his feet far less gracefully. 

“So, I suppose you have an idea, don’t you," he says to Loki, gathering up the satchel with the stones inside. It has dried overnight, and he slings it over one shoulder. 

“Power.”

“What?”

“The power stone, Thor. We don’t need it, do we? Is not the power of the storm enough for us? Did you not fight Thanos with only your own power?”

“And I failed,” Thor says. 

“Clearly. That’s why Thanos is dead, you have all the infinity stones, our people are alive, and so am I. You obviously failed.”

Thor swallows hard but stays silent.

“Power stone first.”

“Morag, then,” Thor tells him. 

“Ugh,” Loki wrinkles his nose. 

“Come here,” Thor says. He pulls the time stone from the satchel, holding it in one hand, with Stormbreaker in the other. A wish and a whirl of his ax with Loki close to his side, and they’re off. 

***

Thor stumbles as they land on Morag. He glances around hurriedly, slipping the time stone back into his bag. Beside him, Loki’s eyes are wide. 

“Was that the Bifrost?”

“Oh,” Thor says. “Yes.”

“And you called it with that ax?”

“Yes.”

“And I thought you were a pain with just the hammer,” Loki scoffs. 

Thor laughs, hefting Stormbreaker in his hand.

“I almost died to get her,” he admits. 

“You didn’t tell me that last night,” Loki says. 

“Well, I couldn’t tell you everything all at once,” Thor says. The truth is, he’d not thought about it, not considered it important enough to mention. 

Loki raises one eyebrow, and hums softly. Thor blushes, and turns away. He’s never been any good at lying to his brother. He busies himself with looking around at the sand and rocks surrounding them. Morag’s seas have retreated and left behind the tumbled remains of the land. Thor can feel the pulse of the clouds above them, the storm that blankets the planet throughout the year. He reaches out to it, tasting its texture. A little rain patters down around them. 

“Stop that, Thor,” Loki says. 

“Sorry. Just saying hello,” Thor tells him. 

“Say hello without getting me soggy again.”

“Sorry,” Thor apologizes again. 

Loki opens his mouth, as though he’s going to say something, but then closes it with an almost audible click. He starts off, picking him way over tumbled, barnacle covered ruins.

Thor follows, mist swirling around his ankles as he tries to catch up with Loki. His brother pauses at one of the larger outcroppings, running his fingers over it. When Thor reaches him, he finds Loki tracing a set of runes deeply graven into the stone. 

“It’s odd,” Loki says. “I never used to like thinking about Morag. A society that drowned itself though its own arrogance. It seemed too unconscionable to even discuss.”

“And now?”

“Well, is that not what happened to us?”

“What?” Thor asks, his voice high. 

“We called Surtur, and Asgard drowned in fire. But we only did so because of Hela’s arrogance, in thinking that Asgard deserved to conquer the galaxy. And she only believed that because Odin told her it was true, told her over and over and over again, until she could not possible think differently. Is that not arrogance?”

Thor tilts his head to one side, considering. 

Perhaps, but why lay the blame at our people’s feet. Morag fell because they _all_ believed themselves to be stronger than the tides, stronger than the rains, stronger than the very weather of their planet.”

“And did our people not fight our wars, and live off the riches of our conquests? Did they not hold themselves in higher esteem than the traders who came from Vanaheim, from Rigel, even from Hala?”

Thor bites his lip. He has not wanted to think of this in the years since Asgard collapsed into the flames of Surtur’s wrath. He looks down at the ground, at the sand that sifts and flows around their boots. 

“No matter,” Loki says. “We are not here to learn from the past, after all. It is dead and gone… or will be when we restore the time stone to its home. But first, the power stone.”

“Its proper home is in the temple a little ways from here,” Thor says. He does not look up yet. This cannot be the end of this conversation, even if they pause for now. There is much they need to consider when they think of their people’s future.

“Should it not have some housing, some way of hiding its power? I doubt that Tony Stark’s little creations are what is expected here.”

Thor nods. He reaches into his satchel, pulling out the power stone and the reality stone. 

“Ah, you would not have me weave something from Seid to contain it?” There’s a bite in Loki’s voice that Thor is uncertain of. 

“You need not, Loki.” 

“I can, Thor. I am not so weak as all that.”

“I never thought you were. Only, if we use this, we can save your power for when we truly need it.”

“It is not a well to run dry. I tire, but you should know by now that my strength does not vanish when I do.”

“Loki-” Thor starts, then shakes his head. “Alright, if you wish to, go ahead. I only thought since we have the stones, we might as well use them.”

Loki snatches the power stone out of Thor’s hand. Its violet light washes over his skin, and coupled with Morag’s dimness, he seems for a moment to wear his Jotun skin. Thor has never really seen him like that, does not know what his brother truly looks like. He is not sure Loki does himself. But for a moment, he can imagine it. 

Then the glow dims. The stone is wrapped in an intricate lacework sphere, a many faceted orb that Loki tosses from one hand to the other. 

“There. That should be good enough.” He hands it back to Thor, and Thor tucks it away. Just as he does, the muffled sounds of many someones moving carelessly through the ruins comes to them.

Thor presses himself against the broken wall next to them. 

“Bor’s blood, we’re too early,” he hisses. 

Loki narrows his eyes, slipping closer to the wall as Thor presses himself to them, trying hard to shrink himself a little. 

“Why?” Loki asks. 

“Thanos. Thanos is here searching for Nebula and the orb.”

***

Loki’s face is washed of color, paler than snow, and he stays close at Thor’s heels as Thor slips forward. 

“Thanos?” he hisses. “Why is Thanos here?”

“Searching for the orb,” Thor says under his breath. “Only now he knows about the Avengers and is searching for Nebula.”

“Why are we here now, of all times?”

“It was a close thing. Quill has to find the orb in place, and he’s already on the planet as well. We have to put it back before he gets to the temple. But I thought Thanos had already left for 2014.”

“You thought. You weren’t sure. And yet you brought us here anyway?” Loki’s voice rises.

Thor turns, yanking Loki forwards by his tunic. 

“I did. I made a mistake. But you have to stay quiet.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, brother,” Loki spits. 

“Loki…” Thor sighs. 

“Let’s just do this and get out of here,” Loki snarls. “You know where you’re going, right?”

“I don’t think things could have changed much since the last time we were on Morag,” Thor says. 

“That was three hundred years ago, Thor.”

“And the planet’s been completely covered by water since then. It’s not as though anyone’s been building new things.”

“Because water never changes where things are,” Loki scoffs. 

Thor turns away. There is no arguing with Loki when he’s in a mood like this, and they don’t have time to in any case. He darts across the empty space between two tumbled piles of rock, moving faster than he has in years. Loki follows on quiet feet, and not for the first time, Thor wishes that he had Loki’s talent for stealth. 

When he peers over the top of the boulders, Thor has to bite back a gasp. Not five meters away are two of Thanos’s servants. Their black mantles stand out against Morag’s blue-grey, and their harsh voices echo in the still air. 

“-got to be around here somewhere.”

“I still don’t quite understand. Are we looking for Nebula or not?”

“Since when was it your job to understand?”

Both of them chuckle, but then the second one cocks their head to one side. 

“Still, if it _is_ Nebula, I don’t know why he didn’t send more of us.”

“She…” 

Their voices slip away into the mist as they move farther off, until they are all but unintelligible. Thor turns to Loki, about to suggest they move on. Loki, though, is pressed flat against the stone wall, clawing at it as though to draw himself closer to it. 

“Brother?” he whispers.

Loki shakes himself all over. Then he pulls away from the wall and dusts his hands off at his sides. 

“Well, what are we waiting for? We had better get to that temple.” Loki’s voice only shakes on the first few words.

Thor nods. He slips though the mist, Loki at his heels once more. They duck in and out of arches hung with sea grass, the slimy strands tracing Thor’s cheeks and caressing his shoulders. He almost trips over the carcass of some fishy creature who had not escaped the retreat of the tides, and lies rotting on dry land. Its stench is heavy in the air around it, and Thor heaves for a moment, holding his stomach. He’s lucky they haven’t eaten in a day or more, because nothing comes up, but he hurries past it all the same. 

Finally, they reach the last standing structure on Morag. The temple has weathered the tides, lasted through long years as the water lapped it and sought to fill it up. As they reach it, Loki grabs Thor’s arm. 

“Wait,” he hisses. 

Thor turns towards him, about to ask why, when the two children they saw earlier come out from inside, dragging Nebula behind them. She twitches as they pull her out in the open, her hands wrapped around her head, her eyes squeezed shut. Thor clenches a fist at his side. He does not know her, not at all. Yet he knows that Gamora feels as deeply for her as he does for Loki, and he cannot help but wish to save her. 

“Wait,” Loki says again. 

Thor pauses long enough that the children have time to grab Nebula once again, and vanish into a flare of light, some power of Thanos drawing them to his ship. 

“That’s the past, right?” Loki says. “And it helps you win, and destroy Thanos once and for all, right?”

“Yes,” Thor growls. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Don’t. Just don’t mess it up. I rather like being alive.”

Thor nods. He will do nothing to jeopardize that.

***

Inside the temple, it is dark. No light filters in. The chamber is perfectly sealed, airtight and watertight. Loki snaps his fingers, and a ball of green light rises above their heads. It hovers above the pedestal right in the center of the room. 

In the glow, Loki’s eyes are sunken in, his cheekbones sharp as they rise up. His skin seems that of one suffering from long illness. It strikes Thor once again how much his brother has aged over these past years. He has too, of course, and all he has to do is run his hands over his sides to know that. But that is all thanks to the tragedy of the past six or seven years. Loki was already careworn and exhausted when appeared on Midgard and brought the Chitauri with him. 

Thor reaches out to him, setting a heavy hand on one of his shoulders. 

“What happened to you, my brother?” he asks. 

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific, Thor. We’re about a millennium old, after all.”

“Loki…”

“You truly will.”

“With Thanos. You have never told me how you came to join him, nor what you did those years after you fell from the Bifrost.”

“You’ve never asked before. Why do you want to know now, Thor?”

“I have never had the chance.”

“That is a lie.”

“When- oh.” Thor cuts himself off. 

“Indeed. I rotted in my cell, alone, with only mother’s shadow to keep me company, and you never once came to see me. You never asked why I was there, why you had taken me from Midgard so easily, though I was cursing and broken. Think you that I could not have broken those bonds you set on me? Think you that I could not have found my way out of your grasp as easily then as I slipped away from that glass cage your Midgardians set up for me? No, Thor, you never asked.”

Thor cups the back of Loki’s neck with a wide palm, drawing him closer. He leans in, pressing his forehead against Loki’s.

“I am sorry, brother. I was angry, and I let my anger blind me to anything but what I wanted to see.”

“One would think you learned little on that sojourn on Midgard where you met your lady.”

“I did not learn as much as I wish I had. I have never learned as much as I need.”

“At least you know it now.”

Loki pulls out of Thor’s grip, turning away and walking over to the pedestal. He sets a hand on it, looking back at Thor. 

“Well, are you going to put it back?”

Thor starts to draw the orb out of his satchel, but pauses. 

“You still haven’t answered the question.”

“And you think I’m going to?” Loki says. 

“Loki, I saw how you were out there. I saw your face when Thanos’s ship appeared outside the Statesman. If we are to do this together, we will have to go back to that battle with the chitauri on Midgard. I need to know.”

“So this is all for you?”

“Why must you always twist my words?”

“I only know what you’ve said, Thor. Why should I think differently?”

“You wish me to speak plainly?”

“I do.”

“Then here, this is the truth, and may the Norns listen too, and hasten my end if I speak falsely.”

Loki looks up at Thor, his eyes wide, his head cocked to one side. 

“I’m listening.”

“I am worried for you, Loki. I do not like to see the pain in your eyes, the fear that covers you like a cloak when you hear Thanos’s name. I was wrong all those years ago, not to ask why you did what you did. I was wrong not to look for you when you fell from the Bifrost, and wrong to think that all you wanted was revenge. I cannot bear the thought of making the same mistake again, of not asking.” Thor takes a deep breath, and shakes his hair out of his face. “You are all I have, Loki. You are the only one of my family, my friends, left in this universe, the only one I love. I want to do all I can for you, to wipe away the hurt and the anger inside you and leave joy behind.”

Thor swallows hard, tears springing up in his eyes. He has nothing more for Loki but that. He has nothing more than care and love and worry. He looks down at the sandy floor, shaking his head so the tears drop down to make little darker spots where they land. 

“That is… you speak truly?” Loki says. His voice is rough, and when Thor looks up, he finds that Loki’s eyes are watering as well.

“Indeed.”

“Then listen. At first, when he plucked me falling from the void, I thought him my savior. Thanos, I mean. He called those around him his children, spoke of righting the wrongs in the world and creating a better one. That was all I wanted. A ruler who did good, who cared for his people and was worthy of the throne. I did not lie on the Bifrost when I told you that I never wanted to rule. I truly only wanted the best for our people and for Asgard. And I thought Thanos might be able to bring good.”

“What changed?” Thor asks. 

Loki wraps his arms around his waist, hugging himself. Thor wants to reach out and take hold of him once again, wants to brush the hair from his forehead and cradle him close like he did when they were children and Loki was afraid of Asgard’s thunder and lightning. Yet there is something about the way that Loki curls in on himself, that holds him back. 

“I did not tell him all my secrets. I did not tell him all of Asgard; of the aether, which I had studied; of our riches or of the Bifrost. I never stopped wanting to help Asgard.”

“Thanos did not appreciate that, I assume.”

“He tortured me. I suppose, since you have met Gamora and Nebula, you know a little of how he treated them. Yet they were his daughters, and in his own twisted way, I suppose he wanted to spare them a little of the pain he wreaked on the bodies of those who were simply tools. He chained me to a rock in the midst of space, on a scorching hot planet where the sun never set. He gave me just enough to survive, and every day, one of his children would come and tell me of the good Thanos would bring, of the new world he would build. They would offer me water, and then, just as I was about to drink, would take it away, telling me that only the righteous would survive in Thanos’s new world.”

“Loki…” Thor gasps.

“All a long year he kept me there, and it was only when I was broken and sobbing, when I had no tears left to cry because I was thin and wasted away, did he bring me back to his ship. And there he put the scepter into my hands. He told me that I had proven myself worthy, that I was meant to aid him. He promised me a lush green world - Midgard - and my own freedom, if only I gave him the tesseract. He said that I had learned that in my bonds were freedom. And I believed him.”

“Oh no,” Thor gasps. He thinks back on what he had seen from Hlidskjalf all those years ago. He had stood next to Odin, and watched as Loki proclaimed that Midgard was freed from freedom itself. 

“I believed him,” Loki repeats. “And then, just days away from his children and his tortures, I realized how wrong I was. But by that point it was too late. I _told_ you it was too late, there on Midgard. And you did not believe me.”

“I was a fool,” Thor admits. “You always told me I was, and I know now that you were right.”

“Now you know,” Loki says, turning away. “Now put the orb back and let us leave this curséd planet. We have been here long enough.”

“Loki, come here,” Thor says. 

Loki turns back to him, raising an eyebrow. Thor doesn’t wait for him to come over, though. Instead, he reaches out, pulling Loki to him. Loki struggles for a few moments, putting one hand against Thor’s soft chest, and trying to push him away. That has never been easy for him, however, and now he is even less able to move Thor’s bulk. 

Thor folds Loki into his arms. Loki is stiff at first, making no move. But then Thor buries his face in Loki’s hair, whispering against Loki’s ear. 

“I am so sorry, brother. I am so terribly sorry.”

Loki collapses against him, pressing himself deep in to Thor’s soft arms. He sighs softly as Thor strokes a hand up and down his back. Thor nuzzles into Loki’s hair again, holding Loki tighter than tight. For a few frozen moments, all they do is cling together. Then Thor fumbles the orb out of his satchel. He slips a little closer to the pedestal, holding Loki to him the whole way. When he sets the orb down, the room is bathed in violet. Thor only notices it for a moment, though, because he presses his face back to Loki’s skin as quickly as he can. One of his hands finds Stormbreaker.

The Bifrost hums about them, and Thor takes them away from Morag, from Thanos, from the horrible memories and the terrible past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/saltandlimes), [tumblr](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com) and everywhere else as Saltandlimes.
> 
> +thanks to Thors-soft-cheeks, aleksandrnevskii, and thundersnake69 for thoughts and inspiration


	3. Space

This time, they land on Midgard steady on their feet. Loki pulls away, brushing himself off, shaking his hair out. 

“Free at last,” he says. 

“Hmm?” Thor asks, hanging Stormbreaker back on his belt. 

“Of Morag’s stench,” Loki says. His lips are pressed tight together, and his eyes are hard once more. “It smells like rotting fish.”

Thor shakes his head. He looks around. They’ve landed in a field not so far outside of New York city, a place he remembers. The last time he was here, the field was full of wildflowers. Now it has been plowed under, and it’s a tumbled expanse of dirt, deep furrows left by the tracks of some machine. The wildflowers were so much more beautiful. 

“Where are we?” 

“Going to get the tesseract.”

“From me? In New York?”

“No. Steven and Tony could not retrieve it there before your younger self took it from them. We have to travel back further.”

“This should be fun,” Loki grins. Thor sighs. 

He pulls out the time stone from the bag at his side, and beckons Loki closer. Loki comes with slow steps, and he does not touch Thor when he stands at his side. Thor sighs once again. 

The time stone glows as he wishes on it, and the world blurs as time bends and reshapes itself around them. Thor keeps his eyes fixed on Loki, the single still point in his universe. 

“When are we?” Loki asks as time and space stabilize. 

“Some time in Midgard’s 1970s,” Thor answers. 

Loki scoffs. 

“Why, for Bor’s sake, have you taken us here?”

“Apparently the Tesseract is in some warehouse here, or was.”

“So you intend to take it back and slip it into their hands without them noticing?”

“Why not? They have no reason to know it was ever missing.”

“What is this warehouse?”

“Steven told me that it is where Shield lived at this time.”

Loki sighs. 

“So the Midgardians’ precious little spies will be around.”

Thor furrows his brow. In all this, all that has happened, Loki’s distaste for Midgard has never faded. 

“Why do you hate them so?”

“It is no matter,” Loki snaps right back at him without a pause. 

Thor shakes his head but says nothing. The sooner they get this finished, the sooner they will be able to return home and such questions will no longer matter. He turns to make his way through the field towards the road that leads to Camp Lehigh.

Loki trails behind him, his footsteps silent across the tilled ground. Thor plods along. He would simply use Stormbreaker to bring them a little closer, but he does not think that wise. The Midgardians are in the midst of that long struggle that consumed their world throughout this century, and he does not want to be mistaken for a ballistic missile. 

Once they reach the road, Loki holds out a hand, slapping it across Thor’s broad chest to stop him from going any farther. He leaves it there for a moment as Thor looks at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“You may be wearing Midgardian clothes, but I am not. Nor are yours appropriate for this.”

Thor looks down at himself. His ratty t-shirt has ridden up a little, and his flannel pants are stained where he knelt in the rain yesterday. He pulls his robe across himself, though the sides don’t quite meet in the center of his body. When he looks up, he finds Loki across from him in a suit, brown fabric odd against his pale, pale skin. 

A shiver runs up his back, and Thor finds himself dressed in Midgardian clothing as well. He digs a finger into his collar, trying to loosen the fabric knotted around his neck. 

“Leave it,” Loki says. 

“I have never understood why they insist on wearing nooses around their necks at all times.”

“A reminder of their mortality, perhaps,” says Loki, laughing, and swatting Thor’s hand as Thor tugs at his collar again. 

Thor shivers once more, though not from Loki’s magic. He does not need any more such reminders. 

***

They walk straight up to the bunker that houses Shield. No one stops them. It makes Thor wonder at the Midgardian’s security procedures. Were this Asgard, there would have been a challenge issued the moment they set foot inside the fort. It isn’t until he sees Loki wave a hand just beside himself and a guard turn away from them that he understands. 

“Have you bewitched them all?” He hisses in Loki’s ear.

Loki raises an eyebrow. He says nothing as they step up to the warehouse placed conspicuously in the center of the compound. There is a guard outside the one door, standing with his hands folded behind his back. Loki leads Thor straight to him.

“We will be using the elevator,” Loki tells the guard. 

“Who do you…” The soldier trails off, then nods slowly. “Of course, sir.”

Loki smiles at Thor, leading the way inside the elevator as the guard nods absently to himself. Thor trails inside, wincing as the elevator bounces a little under their combined weights. He says nothing, not even when Loki pushes the button for the basement, and the doors close, shutting out the light outside. It’s only when they the elevator has been falling for a few moments that he finally speaks. 

“What will happen to those you’ve bewitched?”

“Nothing,” Loki tells him. “I only made them think we were both leaders in this Shield of theirs. Nothing particularly dangerous.”

“And if it hadn’t worked, and they had brought us to true leaders?”

“You worry too much, Thor,” Loki tells him. 

Thor grabs Loki’s tie, yanking hard enough to throw Loki off balance and send him tumbling forwards. Loki catches himself with his palms flat against Thor’s chest. He clenches his fists, grabbing tight to the front of Thor’s jacket. They’re locked together, each holding tight to one another. 

“What?” Loki taunts. “Are you afraid of the little Midgardians, brother? Are you worried that they will hurt you?”

“Cease this, Loki, this posturing and this pride.”

“Is it pride to know I could easily escape them?”

“I am not talking about that,” Thor says. He’s about to continue, but the doors of the elevator slide open with a sharp crash. Loki starts away from him, wiping his hands on his trousers. Thor takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. 

There is no one in the corridor, only cobwebs and their cobs. They pay him and Loki no heed, preoccupied with the search for the few flies that find their way this deep underground. Loki leads Thor out of the elevator, and they stand in the the corridor, looking from side to side. It is blank, the walls a deathly grey, punctuated only by a few dark metal doors scattered along its length. 

“Steven said that there is a warehouse here, a place of boxes and crates in which the Tesseract was hidden,” Thor says. His voice is steady, and he only swallows hard after he finishes speaking. 

“Well then, brother, it should suit you well. Sneaking through the halls, no chance of confrontation.”

“Loki…” 

“Come on then,” Loki says, and spins on a heel. 

Thor’s stomach turns over, the hot coal of anger fighting with pity so strong that he thinks he could choke on it. For a moment on Morag, he thought that they were past this, that Loki was past his fear and his shame, the hateful sense he was not enough that Odin had instilled in him and Thanos fostered. But for every step they take in healing, there are two steps backward, and Thor does not know how to maintain their momentum away from the past. He has hardly been able to survive the present himself. 

Loki is already a few meters down the corridor when Thor comes to himself. He hurries to catch up, his footfalls heavy on the concrete floor. The first door they come to is locked, but a wave of Loki’s hand has it opening for them. Inside is nothing more than rows of shelves, with quaint paper files filling them from top to bottom. A few papers stick out haphazardly, and on one, Thor can see the Shield logo. Loki sighs and shuts the door. 

The next door is locked as well. Unlike the first, it has two sets of locks, one on top of the other. They pose no problem, of course. When Loki twists the bottom knob, the bolt draws back with a groan. The hinges squeal as Loki pushes hard on the door, but it swings open easily enough. 

A huge room opens up in front of them as they step through the doorway. It is lined with packing crates and strongboxes, with boxes and barrels. From deep inside comes the sound of voices. Loki flattens himself to one of the rows. He glares at Thor when Thor does not follow quickly enough, and Thor hurries to catch up, pressing his back to the metal shelving. When they peer around the corner, they can just spot the backs of two men far down one of the rows. Then one of the two turns towards them, and Thor bites back a gasp. 

“Stark,” Loki hisses. 

“He must have just taken the Tesseract.”

“Then we’re right on time.”

“They cannot be allowed to see us,” Thor tells him. 

“They would see two members of Shield, just as everyone else does.”

“Do not take the chance. _I will not take the chance._

“You would have us hide even from Stark?”

“We can change nothing, Loki. I will not risk our future on it.”

“Fine,” Loki says. He waves a hand, and Thor shivers, a chill running up his spine. When he looks down, he can no longer see his own hands, nor any of the rest of him - his belly, his feet, his chest, they are all hidden as though transparent.

“Stay silent,” Loki hisses. “The spell bends only light, not sound.”

Thor nods, but then realizes that Loki cannot see him. He opens his mouth to reply, but before he gets a chance, Stark and the other man begin to walk towards them. They are deep in conversation, Stark’s eyes fixed on the man he walks with as though he holds the secret to the universe in his hands. Even so, he clutches his briefcase close, and when Thor stares at it for too long, he finds his eyes aching as though he has forgotten to blink. As the two men pass, he catches a single glimpse of blue light from inside the bag. 

The door slams shut after Stark, and another shiver winds its way across Thor’s back. His hands come into view once more, as does the rest of him. 

“Now, at least, we know where the Tesseract belongs,” he says. 

Loki does not reply. He leads them down the aisle, back to where Stark and the other man had stood when Loki and Thor first spotted them. There is a packing crate helpful labeled “seized Hydra technology, handle with care.”

Thor laughs at that and when he points to it, Loki gives a guffaw as well. 

“As though those fools would have ever been able to make something like an infinity stone, not least its home.”

“Can you?” Thor asks. “As you did on Morag. Can you create the Tesseract anew?”

Loki’s face falls. 

“It is not the same. On Morag, all I made was a housing, a home for the stone that did nothing more than veil it from sight and touch. The Tesseract is something quite different. It is much as the stone itself, with a living will and a being more complex than any one person could create. It draws the mysterious energies of the beyond inside it, and twists them around the stone until the Tesseract is more than the sum of its parts.”

Thor tilts his head to one side. He has rarely heard Loki admit there is something he cannot accomplish with his spells and his tricks, and to hear it now, when Loki is already so on edge, does not bode well. 

“With the aid of the reality stone then? Could you manage it then?”

“You would let me wield it?”

“Should I not?”

“I have no reason to love this universe as it stands. I could remake it all, change all of Midgard into my dominion and rule it from this time until the stars fail. I could break the bonds that hold the stars together, and send us all into the void to unravel ourselves.”

“But you will not.”

“You have such faith in me?” Loki asks. His eyes are wide, and his fists clench at his sides. 

“I do,” Thor answers, and adds nothing else. There is nothing else to say. Loki will do this, and do it right, or Thor has no reason to care about anything else that happens. If Loki will not do good with him, or will not care for the world that they might build together, than he is free to unravel it all, for all that Thor cares. 

“Then hand me the stones.”

***

The Tesseract’s light winks at them from inside the slats of its crate. Loki hands Thor back the reality stone in its crystal box. Thor tucks it away in his satchel. When he looks up, Loki has a hand on the metal girders that support the shelves all around them. New lines have sprung up around his eyes, and deep shadows glare beneath them. 

“Are you well, brother?” Thor asks. 

“That was no mere spell, Thor. I rewrote the very fabric of this universe just moments ago. I am tired.”

Thor bites his tongue, trying not to snap at Loki for doing something so taxing. Thor himself had asked for it, after all. Instead, he reaches out and sets a hand on Loki’s shoulder. Underneath his fingers, Loki trembles slightly.

“We must leave. You need rest.”

“Aye,” Loki admits. 

Thor takes hold of Loki’s arm, leading him from the great storage room and slamming the door behind them. He hardly sees the grey walls and floor, with their creeping spiders and scurrying cockroaches as he brings Loki back to the elevator and punches at the button that takes them out of this spy’s lair. 

When the elevator opens and the first touch of sunlight hits their faces, Thor takes a deep breath. Underground it had begun to feel as though the sun was somewhere far away, and that there was nothing more than the stones and their soft thrum, the soldiers and spies, the secrets lurking in every corner. Outside, the smells of the earth and the grass come rushing up in all their glory, and Thor cannot help taking another gulp of air. 

Loki staggers as Thor lets go of his arm, but rights himself almost immediately. He bats away Thor’s outstretched hand, hissing at him. 

“We are still among your Midgardians, Thor.”

Thor nods. He squares his shoulders, setting himself on getting as quickly outside Camp Lehigh as possible. They need not linger here any longer, nor risk running into Steven and Tony Stark, if they are still here. 

When they reach the gate of the camp, the guard waves them through without a second glance. Loki’s face is ashen, and the moment they’re out of sight, Thor wraps an arm around his waist, taking as much of Loki’s weight as he can. Loki says nothing, only sags against Thor and lets the illusion of their clothing vanish. 

They veer off the road the moment Thor sees an open field. With his free hand, Thor pulls Stormbreaker from his waist and swings her. The Bifrost rushes about them, its rainbow light flickering in Loki’s eyes.

***  
“Where are we?” Loki asks. 

“Do you not recognize it?” Thor says. 

“Oh, Thor,” Loki sighs. He is still leaning against Thor’s arm, Thor supporting most of his weight. “Do you not thing this foolish?”

“Why? In what other land could we rest for the night, and know that we are safe from all harm.”

“Asgard is gone. We destroyed it, you and I.”

“We saved it from Hela. The place may be gone in our time, but Asgard is not a place, it is a people, and they wait for both of us back on Midgard.”

“Then why take us here, to Asgard of the past, to a world we will never have again?”

“I only wanted a room to rest, Loki.”

Thor gestures around. He has brought them to a forest just outside the city, on an Asgard where he and Loki still live as princes, where their mother and father rule in peace, and they think that will never change. He had not wanted to tug them through time once again, not after their journeys this day, and Asgard was the only place Thor could think of. 

“And what do you propose? You may have changed how you appear, but I am still much the same as I was these years ago.”

Thor does not answer. Loki is right, at least a little. He may not be recognizable as Asgard’s golden prince, but the lines on Loki’s face and the new muscle on his arms does little to mask who Loki is. 

“Can you set an illusion on yourself? Just until we acquire a place to spend the night and to eat a little?” 

Loki sighs. He reaches out with a hand that still shakes a little after his work on Midgard, and touches his hair. For an instant nothing changes. Then it slowly lightens, reddening, until it is much the color of Volstagg’s beard. Loki’s face is still his own, but with the change, no one will believe he is the prince unless they look closely indeed. Thor nods, and guides Loki forwards towards the outskirts of the city. 

It only takes them a few moments of walking before they find an inn. A great boar brandishes its tusks on the sign outside, and their freshly painted yellow gleams in the sunset. 

Thor tugs Loki closer as they step inside, pressing him against his side as though Loki might vanish into the crowded common room if he does not keep him close. The innkeep is nowhere to be found for the first few moments they stand in the doorway, and Thor leads Loki over to the bar and deposits him on one of the tall stools that ring it. 

“You boys look well shot, don’t you now?” A woman comes bustling over to them from behind the bar, her tight dress showing off softly bouncing tits and red ringlets sticking to her pink cheeks. 

“Long day,” Thor tells her. 

“Aye and you look it, don’t you both. Your boy over there worse than you, but you’re a little rough around the edges yourself, aren’t you?” She reaches over the counter and plucks at the robe Thor has almost forgotten he’s wearing. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be charming us or something to get us to buy your drinks?” Loki mutters from where he’s slumped against the bar.

“I’m not as desperate as all that. The Gilded Boar has turned a right good profit this year. Anyway,” she says, grinning at both of them in turn, “I know boys like you. These won’t be much help, now, would they?” she asks, hefting one of her large breasts with a free hand. 

Thor opens his mouth to ask her what she means, but then Loki lets out a giggle. When Thor whips around to look at him, he giggles again, slapping a hand over his mouth after the sound escapes. It slides across Thor’s skin, pulling an answering smile from his lips. He turns to the woman with the grin still on his face.

“So what’ll it be? I’d say a room and a hot meal, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“That would be wonderful, Madam -?” 

“Eldridr. I’ll have a boy bring up a bath for you, shall I?”

“Is the stench that bad?” Loki asks, finally looking up at her. Eldridr grins at him, setting her hands flat on the bar and taking a long sniff. 

“It could be worse,” she says. 

Thor chuckles, taking the key that Eldridr slaps on the bar. 

“The first door on the right. There are fresh bed clothes on the beds and a blanket in case you get cold. It’s an extra five if you want breakfast, and two more if you want dinner in your room and not down here.”

Thor freezes, thinking about the Midgardian dollars in his pocket. Before he can say anything - apologize and leave, perhaps, Loki is setting down coins on the counter, enough for breakfast and dinner tonight. 

“Have a good night, boys. And try to get some rest. You need it.”

***

The room upstairs is small, with barely enough room for the table and chairs under the window and the bed against one wall. There is a quilt spread over top of it, patched together from rough spun and soft, worn cotton. The two pillows look well stuffed. Thor has half a mind to push Loki down onto it and tuck up the covers around him, watching his eyes slip slowly shut and his face go slack in sleep. 

Loki, however, seems to have a different idea. He strips off his leather tunic, leaving himself in only his undershirt. His skin is pale and fresh, hardly a bruise left on it despite all they have done today. He sprawls in one of the chairs, limbs akimbo. 

“Are you just going to stand there?” he asks Thor. 

Thor shrugs, but he’s hardly taken a single step towards the table before there’s a knock at the door. He turns back towards it, one hand set on Stormbreaker as he reaches out to open it. On the other side, three servants stand, a huge tub of steaming water between them. They push past Thor and he lets them inside, watching as they set the tub in the center of the floor. A third appears out of nowhere, fluffy towels stacked in her arms. She sets them down on the bed, and looks between Loki and Thor, before finally addressing the space between them both. 

“Will you need someone to assist in your bathing?”

“We will be fine,” Thor says, holding back the growl that wants to creep into his voice. Loki’s pale shoulders and long fingers are not for someone else to touch, not for anyone else to scrub clean of the horrors they have seen in the last years. 

“Well enough. Someone will be by with your dinner and to collect the water shortly.” She herds the rest of the servants out of the room, little shooing flutters of her hands and the soft tap of her heels urging them onwards. 

When the door closes behind them, Thor pulls off his robe and tosses it to one side. He’s left in his gloves and undershirt, his dirty pants hanging low on his hips. Loki stretches, then stands, unlacing his trousers with a flick of his fingers. In an instant, he’s naked, long legs all on display and the soft black hair leading across his belly and downwards catching Thor’s eye. Thor stares for a moment or two. 

It has been years since he saw his brother completely bare. They shared a washroom growing up, and all the way until Thor’s botched coronation changed everything. It strikes Thor that Loki has changed little in all this time, his skin still creamy and pale, his thighs still strong with muscle. 

“The water is getting cold, Thor,” Loki says. He steps into the tub, crouching down to sit. The water laps against his sharp collar bones as he draws his legs up close. 

Thor shakes himself, pulling off his shirt and then stepping out of his pants. He makes his way over to the tub, setting one foot inside. 

“Aren’t you taking those off?” Loki asks. He gestures to the gloves Thor has forgotten to remove. Thor’s face heats. He pulls them off slowly, tossing them over to where his trousers lie in a crumpled heap of flannel. 

“What’s that?” Loki says. 

Thor steps into the tub without answering. He keeps his eyes off of where he holds the rim, watching the water lap at his round calves and then cover his broad chest instead. 

“Thor, I asked you a question,” Loki snaps. They both have to keep their knees drawn up to fit in the tub at the same time, and Thor tries to hide his hands in the crooks of his knees. Loki snatches at one, a little water splashing out on the floor at his sharp movement. 

“What happened here?” he asks. 

Thor finally looks down at the scars that crisscross the back of his hands, at the white lines that radiate out from his knuckles. 

“When I…” he swallows hard. “When I failed, and then when I killed Thanos that first time, it was not without consequences. My flesh was weak.”

“Thor…” Loki sighs. “You think this something to hide? You have never hid the scars of battle before.”

“I have never before failed like this.”

“Am I alive?” Loki asks, his voice taught as a bowstring.

“Yes?” Thor answers. His throat feels thick, his head fuzzy, and all he can see is Loki’s fingers wrapped around his scarred hands. 

“And do our people live? Does your precious Midgard live? Does the galaxy live?”

“Yes… some of them at least.”

“Why do you say you failed?”

“I did not kill him the first time. I am a failure and indeed a coward, just as you said before. I cannot even wear the badge of my failure for all to see.” Thor stares down at the water that fills the small space between his belly and the fronts of his thighs. 

“Fool,” Loki says, but his voice is soft. “I lie, Thor. You know that.”

“Not about such things,” Thor mutters. “This time you only speak the truth.”

“ _I lie, Thor._ ” Loki squeezes his hand so tightly that Thor has to look up at his face. Loki’s eyes are wide and bright, his mouth set in a thin line. “And you are a fool. These things do not change. Do not assume they will or they do.”

Thor tries to jerk his hand out of Loki’s, but Loki will not let him go until he gives a curt nod.

“The water is getting cold,” he says when he finally has his hand back. 

“Then clean up,” Loki orders, and without another word, he steps out of the tub. He waves a hand over himself, and his hair goes sleek and clean. The water disappears from his skin with another wave. Thor scrubs himself absently as he watches Loki root around in the chest at the end of the bed, finally pulling out a nightshirt for both of them. 

When he gets out and rubs himself dry, Loki hands him the larger of the two shirts. It stretches across Thor’s chest and belly when he pulls it on, but fits well enough other than that. He stumps across the floor to where his clothes lie in a pile, reaching down to pick up his gloves. 

“Don’t,” Loki says. 

Thor straightens up, gloves clenched tight in one hand. 

“Just tonight, Thor. Don’t.”

There is a knock at the door. Thor lets the gloves fall to the floor, and opens the door to find food and dark mead waiting on the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/saltandlimes), [tumblr](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/), and [dreamwidth](http://saltandlimes.dreamwidth.org)
> 
> +Sorry about the slight delay in posting this. I have had a hellishly busy past two weeks.


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